Many educational programs need to be presented to participants who are located at remote sites. In such a situation, the participants must either physically travel to a central site, or the educational program must be delivered to the participants at their remote sites.
Where the educational program is to be delivered to the participants at their remote sites, the educational program is traditionally delivered either via live broadcast or via pre-recorded media such videotape, CD-ROM, DVD, etc.
While such live broadcast and pre-recorded media distribution is satisfactory for many purposes, it does not adequately address all situations.
One situation which is not adequately addressed by such live broadcast and pre-recorded media distribution, and of particular interest to the present invention, is that of professional continuing education programs.
More particularly, professional continuing education programs may be required for many different professions, e.g., accounting, legal, etc. In this situation, the entity responsible for administering the continuing education program (sometimes hereinafter referred to as the “continuing education administrator”) is generally very concerned with verifying that the participant actively works through the educational program. This is particularly true inasmuch as program credit is traditionally awarded on the basis of program attendance rather than on the basis of passing specific examinations.
As a result, continuing education administrators have generally been reluctant to allow a participant to accrue program credit by individually watching a live broadcast, or by individually watching pre-recorded media such as videotape, CD-ROM, DVD, etc. Instead, the participant has traditionally been required to physically attend a monitored program session in order to receive program credit. Unfortunately, this may require the participant to physically travel to another location, and requires that the participant be available at the time that the monitored program session is being offered.